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Most photographs reproduce acceptably on positive microfilm or microfiche but lack the clarity on xerographic copies made from the microfilm. For an additional charge, 35mm slides of 6”x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations that cannot be reproduced satisfactorily by xerography. Order Number 8726615 The meaning ofCaritas in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis Cubie, Genevieve McMackin, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1987 Copyright ©1987 by Cubie, Genevieve McMackiu. All rights reserved. U MI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 THE MEANING OF CARITAS IN JOHN GOWER'S CONFESSIO AMANTIS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Genevieve McMackin Cubie, A.B., M.Div., M.A. The Ohio State University 1987 Dissertation Committee: Approved by C. K. Zacher L. J. Kiser h se r A. K. Brown EnglisF Department Copyright by Genevieve McMackin Cubie 1987 VITA August 18, 1926 . ... „............................. Born - Nashville, Tennessee 1948 ............................................................................. A.B., Trevecca Nazarene College, Nashville, Tennessee 1951 ............................................................................. M.Div., Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri 1971 ............................................................................. M.A., Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 1970-72 ....................................................................... Teacher, Woodward School for G irls, Quincy, Massachusetts 1972-Present ........................................................ Associate Professor, Mount Vernon Nazarene College, Mount Vernon, Ohio FIELD OF STUDY English Literature ii TABLE OF CONTENTS VITA .............................................................................................................................................. ii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER I. THE NEED FOR AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE TERM CARITAS . 3 II. ANDERS NYGREN'S ANALYSIS OF AUGUSTINIAN CARITAS .... 29 III. CARITAS IN THE PENITENTIAL LITERATURE OF THE MIDDLE .......................................................................................................................... 42 IV. CARITAS IN THE CONFESSIO AMANTIS ................................................... 70 V. THE NOMISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONFESSIO AMANTIS . 104 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................... 193 i i i INTRODUCTION In one of the last sections of his Mirour de I'Omme Gower seeks for the source of the malice for which the world has been blamed and concludes that man alone is guilty. He is guilty because he has failed to render true obedience to God; therefore, "he will have to go the highway to hell."^ However, because he has been endowed with reason and free w ill, man can choose to obey, but he must f ir s t make amends, and he must begin by blaming only himself for the evil condition of his world. Each person, Gower says, must be willing to correct "one single man"--himself; "for it would never be necessary to go farther than to begin with oneself" (IT* 27277f). So saying, Gower begins with himself. "In olden days," he says, "I gave myself freely to wantonness and vain joy. But now . I will change all that. I will accuse my conscience, and I will sing a different song .... [And] thou, who art willing to listen to me, listen while I sing softly, for it is a song of the heart" (11. 27337f). At the close of the Prologue to the Confessio Amantis, which has many affinities with the Mirour, Gower yearns for the healing of England and longs for "An other such as Arion," whose harp was so finely tuned and whose song was of such "good mesure" that he healed the hierarchy ^John Gower, Mirour de 11Omme, trans. William Burton Wilson, Diss. Univ. of Miami, 1970, 1. 27156. Further references to this work appear in the text. 1 and brought peace to all who listened.^ I would like to suggest that Gower himself assumes the role of Arion and that the poem that follows is the song that if heeded would bring spiritual and social salvation to England. The song that Gower sings in the Mirour de I'Omme is a lengthy paean of praise to his "Lady," the Virgin, who alone can heal his af­ flicted soul and cure the malady of his heart (11. 27421f ). The song of the Confessio Amantis is a song of Christian love that tells every man (Amans) how to attain the Lady who knows how to apply the healing salve for sin. The world is composed of men like Amans, and if each will listen to the song and obey the instructions, all of society can be healed. As man is the cause of evil, just so he can be the cause of good. Utopia is not impossible. 2 John Gower, Confessio Amantis, Vols. II and III of The Complete Works of John Gower, G. C. Macaulay, ed. (Oxford, 1899-1902; rpt. Grosse Pointe, Mich.; Scholarly Press, 1968), Prol. 1053-77. Further refer­ ences to this work appear in the text. CHAPTER I THE NEED FOR AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE TERM CARITAS As its title suggests, love is the chief subject of John Gower's Confessio Amantis. But what kind of love Gower is presenting is a mat­ ter of dispute among those writers who have attempted to identify it. Moreover, the very meaning of the term love, or c a rita s , has been de­ fined in various ways, an. this adds to the d ifficulty of discovering Gower's intention. Actually, Gower scholars rarely analyze the idea of love in the Confessio Amantis; they discuss more frequently such subjects as Gower's technique, sources, relationship to Chaucer, political philosophy, and social criticism. A few critics who do inquire into the nature of love in the poem are William G. Dodd, C. S. Lewis, John Fisher, and Russell Peck. Dodd some time ago concluded that Gower's poem is fully within the tradition of courtly love.1 Lewis says that courtly love is the framework for the Confessio Amantis, and that although the story itself is that of an old man's unsuccessful love for a young g irl, the poem in­ cludes serious moralizing, which Gower artistically manages.^ Fisher W illiam George Dodd, Courtly Love in Chaucer and Gower, Harvard Studies in English, No. 1 (Boston, 1913; rpt. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1959), pp. 42-89. 2C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A^ Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford, 1936; rpt. New York: Oxford Univ. Press,~T958), p. 2T7! 3 4 denies the courtly love theory altogether and states that the real con- O text of the poem is "Empedoclean love.' According to Peck, "common profit," a form of social love, is the key to Gower's moral philosophy.^ c Other c ritic s , notably H. A. Kelly, argue that the love championed in the Confessio is marital love. Four kinds of love, then, have been al­ leged to be dominant in the Confessio Amantis: courtly, Empedoclean, social, and marital. Dodd, in 1913, was one of the first to interpret the Confessio £ Amantis as a courtly love poem. Besides identifying the typical court­ ly love trappings, which he has denoted in the firs t section of his book, he elaborates on those aspects of courtly love which he perceives as pe­ culiar to the poem. He unduly construes Gower's representation of the love deity as untrustworthy and harsh. According to Dodd, Venus is un­ favorable to lovers, unjust, neglectful, a goddess of carnal passion; he insists that "it is the deceitfulness of love that Gower remarks upon more than any other quality."'7 More importantly, Dodd alleges that Gower John Fisher, John Gower, Moral Philosopher and Friend of Chaucer (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1964), p. 187. ^Russell A. Peck, Kingship and Common Profit in Gower1s Confessio Amantis (Carbondale, 111.: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1978), p. xxi. 5 Henry Ansgar Kelly, Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer (Itha­ ca, N. Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1975")^ Dodd also early made the association of the Confessio with such Christian confessional manuals as Friar Lorens's La Somme des Vices et Vertues, The Pricke of Conscience, Manuel des Peches, Chaucer's "The Par­ son's Tale," and Robert Mannyng of Brunne's Handlynge Synne. "What these manuals, with their stories, were to the Christian, he writes, "the Confessio Amantis would have been to priests of Love, if any such priests had really existed" (Courtly Love in Chaucer and Gower, p.